Chapter Seven

Community Police Patrols and Vigilantism* Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer

In their introductory chapter, H. Jon Rosenbaum and Peter C. Sederberg define vigilantes as those who identify with the established order, yet in defending it resort to means in violation of traditional boundaries. They suggest a typology of vigilantism according to whether its purpose is primarily crime-control, social-group-control, or regime-control and whether participants are private or public persons. A group may, of course, have more than one purpose and this may change over time. This essay focuses on American private groups primarily concerned with crime-control, particularly those who see themselves as victims of crime and/ or are critical of the response of authorities to crime. Americans have responded to recent law-enforcement problems with increased fear, estrangement from neighbors, avoidance behavior, increased receptivity to law-and-order politics, and, as the rising fortunes of the private security industry suggest, increased purchases of protective devices such as better locks, alarms, and weapons. The above are primarily passive, defensive, indirect, and individual responses.1 Other more active, aggressive, direct group responses may also be seen. American society has always placed a heavy emphasis on voluntary

*We are grateful to the Urban Institute and the National Institute for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice for support. The original version of this article first appeared as “Citizen Involvement in the Law Enforcement Process: The Case of Community Police Patrols,” by Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer in American Behavioral Scientist 15, no. 1 (Sept./Oct. 1971): 2-72 published by Sage Publications, Inc.

1 For data on individual responses, F. Furstenberg, “Fear of Crime and Its Effect on Citizen Behavior,” (Paper prepared for Symposium on Studies of Public Experience, Knowledge and Opinion of Crime and Justice, Bureau of Social Science Research, Washington, D.C., 1972), and J. Conklin, The Impact of Crime (New York, Macmillan, 1975).

In H. Jon Rosenbaum and Peter C. Sederberg (eds), Vigilante Politics. Univ. of Penn. Press, 1976

130 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 131

action and masculinity. It should not be surprising that the country’s populist, into their own hands, a recent account lists no fewer than 326 vigilante self-help ethos should have spawned a large number of citizen policing groups movements during the past two centuries of American history.2 such as the Louisiana Deacons, Anthony Imperiale’s North Ward Citizens’ R. M. Brown distinguishes two types of vigilantism in America. The first Committee, the Watts Community Alert Patrol, and the Jewish Defense League. appeared prior to 1856 in areas where settlement preceded effective law enforcement. The concerns of this type of vigilantism were primarily horse It is with these groups (“self-defense patrols,” “vigilantes,” “peace creeps,” thieves, counterfeiters, outlaws, and “bad men”—the enforcement, that is, of “security patrols,” or “community patrols,” depending on the group in consensually formulated standards of peace and law. question and the political perspective of the observer) that this paper is The emergence of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee in 1856 was the concerned. It focuses on an organizational response of victims (or at least birth of a second form of citizen mobilization, what Brown calls those who see themselves and their communities as potential victims). “neovigilantism.” Unlike the earlier type, neo-vigilantism “found its chief Perceived victimization is expanded to include actions of authorities as well as victims among Catholics, Jews, immigrants, Negroes, laboring men and labor actions of those engaged in traditional crime and disorder. leaders, political radicals, and proponents of civil liberties.”3 Relatively little is known about contemporary American patrol groups While the first type of vigilantism filled or attempted to fill a discernible beyond an occasional journalistic account. There are few answers for such void, the second generally emerged where the regular police and legal systems important questions as: In what contexts do patrol groups emerge? What are were already functioning, but where alien groups were seen to threaten the their natural histories of development? How widespread and enduring are established order. Rather than simply enforcing the law, the second type such groups and what are the main types? What are their purposes and frequently involved political struggles for power, racism, attempts to terrorize practices? What is the nature of their interaction with police, various levels of would-be criminals, and even the desire to spare the public the cost of the government, other ethnic groups, and their own presumed constituency? How conventional judicial process. are they viewed by these various groups? How are they organized? How are Recent self-defense groups differ from more classic vigilante groups in that members recruited and to what extent are they screened and trained? What they, for the most part, have not killed or taken the law into their own hands. characteristics and attitudes do members have, and what factors are involved Instead, their primary functions have been the surveillance and protection of in their motivation to participate? What theory of police failure do they hold? their own communities, often as an ancillary group to regular police. Thus, How does the public view them? What are their consequences for the they more closely resemble the early anti-horsethief societies which amplified reduction of crime and civil disorders, feelings of safety, curtailing police law enforcement through pursuit and capture, but did not try to substitute for abuses, or increasing intra- and intergroup conflict in a community; e.g., it by administering summary punishments. Recent groups have performed within or between ethnic groups or with the police? What are their largely deterrent functions and have not usually held street trials or meted out implications for law enforcement and public policy? This paper makes a alley justice. But the fact that private citizens have chosen to involve preliminary elfort to deal with questions such as the above. themselves in police work has meant that the issue, if not often the substance, of vigilantism has reoccurred with them. COMMUNITY POLICE PATROLS One of the most important of contemporary self-defense groups, at least in the last twenty years, has probably been the “self-defense guard” which When public institutions fail to meet felt needs, a number of recurring organized in Monroe, North Carolina in 1956. The group’s purpose was to responses on the part of the communities presumably being serviced may be protect its members against the harassment and incursive violence of the Ku observed. These vary, perhaps in decreasing order of frequency, from passive Klux Klan, long a citizen patrol group of a very different nature. The Monroe resignation or withdrawal, to reformist and radical politics, to efforts to set up group, led by Robert Williams, attracted sixty members and received a charter wholly new institutions outside the traditional system. from the National Rifle Association. Citizen involvement in law enforcement is not new to the American scene. The next widely publicized self-defense group patrolled the Crown Heights In earlier periods of American history when people felt that there was too area of Brooklyn between 1964 and 1966. The group called itself the much crime, that their persons or property were in danger, that cherished “Maccabees,” after a Jewish resistance group which fought to curb Syrian traditions and values were being threatened, and that regular law- enforcement officials were not coping with the problem, vigilante-type efforts 2. R. M. Brown, “The American Vigilante Tradition,” in H. D. Graham and T. R, Gurr, eds.. The History of Violence in America (New York; Praeger, 1969), p. 154. frequently emerged. Counting only those groups which have taken the law 3. Ibid., p. 197. 132 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 133 domination in the second and first centuries BC. Led by Rabbi Samuel A. Some Descriptive Data on Twenty-Eight Groups Schrage, the Maccabees of the 1960s numbered 250 volunteer members and Race of Members. Of the twenty-eight self-defense groups, seventeen (61 used radio-car patrols to report crime and deter potential criminals. percent) were black. Since the performance of conventional police is probably In 1965, a year after the Maccabees organized, a black self-defense group least adequate and most controversial in black neighborhoods, the dispro­ known as the Deacons gained prominence in Bogalusa and Jonesboro, portionate emergence of alternate institutions there should not be surprising. Louisiana. The Deacons fielded armed patrol cars to protect civil rights Operations. The functions performed by the groups varied. The most workers and blacks from Klansmen, white rowdies, and the police. Led by common function, characterizing more than four out of ten, involved patrols Charles Sims, the Deacons claimed seven thousand members in Louisiana of their neighborhoods; 39 percent worked to “cool” existing or imminent civil and sixty loosely federated chapters in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and the disorders; 32 percent kept their communities under surveillance and were Carolinas.4 A useful case study of a group like the Deacons is given by Harold “eyes and ears” for the police; 25 percent, according to police, actively Nelson.5 interfered with police arrests and other work; and 21 percent assisted in public Shortly after the 1965 Watts riot, a group of young blacks organized the education on matters of law enforcement. Community Alert Patrol to observe the way ghetto residents were treated by the Los Angeles Police. The following year, at about the time that Oakland, Equipment and Weapons. Unlike earlier vigilante groups, a majority of the California rejected a proposal for a police review board, Huey P. Newton groups report themselves or are reported to be unarmed. Only two of the organized the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense to inform blacks of their groups (7 percent) admitted to carrying guns, though at least four groups (14 legal rights and to “preserve the community from harm.” percent) reportedly carried clubs. The most frequently reported types of The riots of the latter part of the 1960s gave rise to a number of diverse equipment were walkie-talkies and car radios, and 14 percent of the groups patrol groups. Terry Knopf presents information on nine youth patrols (and (most of which had young members) wore identifying shirts, berets, or jackets. notes eleven others) which worked to limit confrontations, arrests, and Chronicity. Slightly over half the groups had routinized their operations. violence in ghetto areas during the summer of 1967.6 Ethnically based white Roughly a third (32 percent) of the groups were active primarily during groups, such as Anthony Imperiale’s North Ward Citizens’ Committee and periods of civil disorder. the Jewish Defense League, emerged partly in response to the black riots. More recently the concept of civilian policing has overflowed the original Police Departmental Regulation. Police were in communication with about street patrol model, coming to focus on more limited contexts such as housing two-thirds of the groups, generally to explain things like the legal limits of projects, rock concerts, and protest demonstrations. According to one citizens’ arrests and to give instruction or advice. In at least one city, Boston, 8 estimate, more than eighty-five hundred unpaid volunteers were on “tenant police have actually drawn up guidelines for citizen patrol groups. In about safety patrols” in ninety-three New York City Housing Authority projects one-third of the cases, police issued some form of identification, often in card in 1970. form, to group members. This was particularly true in the case of groups whose purpose was to reduce, from within, the level of violence in civil METHOD disorders.

We have gathered some descriptive information on twenty-eight self- Attitudes of Police. In the case of 43 percent of the self-defense groups, defense groups, using a snowball technique of gaining cases. This information police officials reported they were glad the groups existed. It is worth noting is based on interviews with police and patrol group members, observation, that this figure is not as high as the police perception of the number of groups newspaper accounts, and analysis of documents.7 which were pro-police (61 percent). In the case of 25 percent of the groups,

4. Ibid., p. 203. self-defense groups than of their substance. Some reported groups, upon inspection, turn out to 5. H. A. Nelson, “The defenders: a case study of an informal police organization,” Social be evanescent, practically inoperative, and in at least one case, an announced self-defense group Problems 15 (Fall 1967),: 127-147. was discovered to have membership of one man: the group founder himself. Our twenty-eight 6. T. A. Knopf, Youth Patrols: An Experiment in Community Participation (Waltham: cases consist of most of the fully operative general patrols (as against special purpose patrols such Brandeis University Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence, 1969). as those restricted to one housing project) known to us and our informants in 1970-1971. The 7. Interviews outside the Boston area were carried out using a semi-structured phone actual number of groups is no doubt much larger since some groups, such as the Jewish Defense interview. We do not know the extent to which the descriptive material can be generalized beyond League (treated as one case here), claim numerous affiliates. We have excluded traditional police these twenty-eight cases. The “patrols” universe is unknown and subject to much fluctuation. auxiliaries. Newspaper accounts of such groups are often deceptive and reflective more of the mood behind 8. Knopf, Youth Patrols. 134 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 135 police officials said they wished that the groups did not exist. Police felt that 36 predicted that police would approve all supplemental groups and allow them percent of the groups had improved police-community relations, 29 percent to flourish, while opposing and suppressing all adversarial groups. This is were actually cutting down on crime, and 18 percent had helped to prevent or often, but by no means always, the case. Thus, for one-third of the groups that deflate riots. At the same time, police felt that 25 percent of the groups had police perceived as “pro-police,” the opinion was nevertheless expressed that “abused their authority,” and they reported receiving complaints from other it would be better if the groups didn’t exist. There seem to be two mitigating citizens about the groups’ operations in 21 percent of the cases. variables: (1) police do not always approve of all supplemental groups because, among other reasons, they say it is bad for untrained citizens of any ANALYSIS: FIVE ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS ideology to “take the law into their own hands,” (2) police do not immediately suppress all adversarial groups, partly to avoid trouble and partly because In the course of their creation and development, self-defense groups must they know that the groups often have a better chance of maintaining order, come to terms with at least five major issues: (1) their relationship to the police particularly during active or threatened disorders. and legal system; (2) their legitimacy in the eyes of the communities they wish A Typology of Groups. There are, thus, two important dimensions along to serve; (3) the recruitment and management of personnel; (4) the choice of which such groups vary: the nature of the group (supplemental or adversarial) appropriate operations; and (5) the maintenance of resources, incentives, and and the nature of the police response (encouragement or opposition). When motivation for the groups’ survival. these two dimensions are combined, a useful typology emerges by which 1. Self-Defense Groups and the Police groups may be contrasted and analyzed. Self-defense groups are heterogeneous phenomena. One of the most In Figure 1, groups from eight cities have been placed in the appropriate important dimensions on which they vary is their attitude toward police. By cells of the typology. definition, self-defense groups believe that the police have failed to keep either order or security. But there seems to be an important and dichotomous Figure 1 A Typology of Groups difference in their theory of police failure. Police Response The first type of group sees police failure as attributable to manpower shortages, overlenient local courts, the Escobedo, Miranda, and other Encouragement or Opposition or decisions of the Supreme Court, and simply the rampant increase and Noninterference Suppression encroachment of those they regard as “the criminal element.” This first type of self-defense group sees the police as good men overwhelmed from without and TYPE I TYPE II handcuffed from within. They see them, that is, as failures, but not as Cleveland Seattle blameworthy. Queens Boston The second type of self-defense group sees the police as part of the problem. In general, the second type of group attributes police failure to what they see as police (1) lack of understanding or any rapport with the communities they TYPE 111 TYPE IV serve, (2) arrogant and corrupt behavior, (3) brutality, (4) racism, (5) their role Baton Rouge Oakland as guardians only of the propertied classes and the status quo. The second type Tampa Minneapolis of self-defense group, then, counts the police among those against whom the community must be defended. This second type of self-defense group is intended either as a check on police or as a clear alternative to them. Police are 9. As with any ideal-typical classification, the actual relations between the police and self- seen as highly blameworthy failures. defense groups are often more complex than the table implies. For example, in the case of the The relationship of these two types of groups to police may be described as proposed Boston Mattapan Dorchester Community Patrol, there is a hierarchical split of opinion within the police department. Officials at the superintendent level endorse the patrol, but the head supplemental and adversarial, respectively. of the department’s rank and file Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association is vehement in his The attitude of a self-defense group toward the police does influence police opposition. There may as well be diiferences of opinion within a self-defense group over theories response to the group (and, as the increased revolutionary perspective of the of police failure. Even where there is consistency within departments, the police attitude may be ambivalent. Thus, although the Boston Jewish Defense League considers itself pro-police and Black Panthers indicates, subsequent police response and the nature of official reports to the local police before going out on patrols, police interviewed appeared to be neutral labeling, of course, acts back on the attitudes of the group). It might be toward them, approving of their concern over crime but not taking them very seriously. 136 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 137

Type 1: Supplemental and encouraged by police. The self-defense groups Type III: Adversarial and encouraged by police. Because of their which fall into Cell I of the typology generally meet police notions of potential organizational contradiction, the self-defense groups in Cell III are acceptable citizen mobilization. In all cases within this category, both power of particular interest. Many of these groups are short-lived, and all appear to and independence are low. The police exercise complete authority over the survive precariously. They and the police are mutually suspicious and organization, its leaders, activities, and members. Typically, these groups resentful, existing in a state of hostile interdependence. Most of these groups either begin as or are transformed into police auxiliaries with jobs such as are born during riots, and many demand, as a condition of their “cool-it” traffic control or property protection during civil disorders. Most housing function, that police withdraw from troubled areas. Withdrawal is seen by the project patrols also fall within Type I. Other Type I organizations are of police as humiliating, though sometimes forced by higher authority, and police-supporting citizens’ groups. They may establish and publicize “Crime police embarrassment is compounded if the groups are effective. At the same Alert” telephone numbers and patrol streets only to call in bona fide time, members of the “cool-it” groups may suffer a loss of the respect of their policemen if they sight suspicious behavior or persons, or they may do public constituents, and they may feel (and sometimes say) that they were used as relations work for the police.10 Type I groups are the most numerous, tools to deflate protest and then discarded. During the disorders, cities which well manned, and stable. have groups of Type III are remarkable studies in struggle for influence Type II: Supplemental and opposed by police. Police may oppose groups between institutional authorities and nascent alternate powers. However, in Cell II on several grounds, in some cases for reasons having little to do with after the disorder, or when all danger of a major conflagration has passed, the specific nature of the self-defense group.11 Instead, police may express a groups in Cell III tend to collapse. Many cities voted to salary and support general dislike of amateurs. The mistakes of citizen patrols, like those of “cool-it” groups during and shortly after a riot, but the salaries inevitably private guards, may be seen to give regular police a bad image. Police may dried up, often with the end of summer. At that point, long-standing tensions resent the hedging in on their monopoly over violence and be wary of anything between the groups and the police often resurfaced, and the groups might that smacks of vigilantism. In Seattle, for example, a citizen group mobilized move into Cell IV of the typology. to offer the police help in dealing with a demonstration against the war in Type IV: Adversarial and opposed by police. The groups in Cell IV of the Vietnam. The acting police chief declined their offer, saying he had no desire typology, although relatively small in number, are the most dramatic. to end up fighting two mobs instead of one. Apparently, Type II groups either Adversarial patrols have emerged among minority groups or where there are change to meet police requirements or fail. Some move into political action on concentrations of whites with deviant life styles and dissenting political behalf of law and order. beliefs, as there are around university communities. Although specific tactics Several departments took a cooptive approach to patrols. A chief in one differ, most of the Type IV groups seek to protect their communities from western city reported: what they see as police excesses by trying to oversee actual police operations When local people start talking about organizing a patrol, the community or attacking police. In at least two cities, members of a self-defense patrol relations department goes in and invites them to ride in a patrol car. At this point carried cameras to record police behavior during arrest situations. In another the intent is more to educate the citizen than to help us. If the citizen is still gung case, a self-defense group listened to police radio calls for the location of ho, he is encouraged to join the police auxiliary. complaints likely to result in arrests and then showed up and urged those In Cleveland a number of neighborhood patrols were made regular police involved to leave before police arrived. auxiliaries. This was seen by the safety director as a way of increasing the size Police see these groups as among their most dangerous enemies. They say of the force while warding off the danger of vigilantism. In other cities some of that most of the members have arrest records, that members have searched those who start as private patrollers later join regular auxiliaries. cars and homes without authority, and that the members themselves are as active on the side of crime and riots as in their prevention. While there may be 10. For example, a Community Radio watch sponsored as a “public service program of some or a great deal of substance to the police assessment, it is also true that Motorola Communications and Electronics, Inc.” reports that in 700 cities almost 500,000 drivers police surveillance of Type IV groups is intensive. There are many instances of of two-way radio equipped vehicles are providing emergency information to public-safety agencies. This includes information on “suspicious acts, street crimes, and unusual occurrences.” police harassment of such groups, as in the cases of the original Black 11. Here it may be useful to differentiate the public police attitude which may be negative from Panthers of Oakland, when they had active patrols, or the Deacons of the private attitude of particular policemen. Some members of self-defense groups interviewed Lousiana. Such groups have a volatile natural history. In the case of one Type reported that regular police envied what was seen as the private patrol’s ability to crack heads and IV group, 80 percent of its members were reportedly in jail at the time we made get away with it, in a way that police could not. Some patrols routinely have weapons such as mace or metal-tipped plastic clubs usually denied police. our inquiry. 138 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 139

Many groups which end up in Cell IV began in Cell III. Almost invariably, cuts, ill-designed programs and faulty planning which in the long run render the the groups lost the tolerance of the police through efforts to regulate police situation worse than it was in its previous state ... Citizens throughout the eity are entitled to proper police protection; they should not have to rely on a behavior, thus challenging the absolute supremacy of the police. As an volunteer group to shoulder this responsibility. example, the Community Alert Patrol in Los Angeles had applied for (and received provisional approval of) $238,000 in Health, Education and Welfare Perhaps ironically, the same proposal was attacked by Boston militants. In funds to finance their operations. The grant included $1600 for cameras and the People’s South End News (July 1970), an article opposed the community tape recorders, and any evidence of police misbehavior was to have been patrol, saying: recorded and submitted for the investigation of complaints. The police If the power structure can keep the people arguing over (1) more pigs in the opposed the patrol, saying they did not need “nonpolicemen to police the community or an unarmed auxiliary police force; (2) and continue to keep racial police,” and funding was halted. tensions high, they will never get around to the real issue facing every In part, police oppose Type IV groups simply because they are most clearly community. That is, community control of police and the total withdrawal of the present occupying army It’s long past the time to stop fighting each other, “anti-police.” But Type IV groups are also those which, more than the other ... and deal with the enemy. three types of groups, carry weapons, use violence to establish their authority, and resist any kind of control over their operations. It might be argued, of In another example, two community organizers concerned with reducing course, that these three traits are also characteristic of the police themselves crime in a housing project in a small New England town sought to encourage and that such groups come closest to being competitors and alternatives to residents to organize a self-defense group. The organizers acknowledged that regular police. A number of police officials reported that their main objection most residents felt the crime problem could be best handled by assigning more to the Type IV group in their city was that it did things that only police were police to the project. Yet their hostility to the police and concern that entitled to do. Although it is difficult to stipulate its content precisely, there is increased regular police would undermine the community’s control over their clearly a threshold between civilians and police which no citizens are own affairs led them to try to establish a self-defense group. permitted to cross. At least in Boston, and probably elsewhere (particularly in the North), a clear community mandate for any given autonomous self-defense group as an 2. Self-Defense Groups and the Communities They Wish to Serve alternative to regular police is likely to be lacking (though considerable In part because they raise the spectre of vigilantism, self-defense groups are support may exist for the general principle of citizen involvement). The likely to be attended by controversy. Even in the case of supplemental absence of a broad base of popular support may explain in part why Types III organizations where communities generally seem to be united in their and IV live precariously and often have a short life. recognition of law enforcement problems, they are often divided over the However great their failings sometimes are, regular police forces still have appropriateness of the self-defense solution. In the case of adversarial groups, something of a legal, consensual mandate to operate, though the strength of the host communities are even more sharply divided. The difference may be this mandate no doubt weakens as social class decreases or the proportion of due, in part, to the lack of agreement among citizens as to whether or not the nonwhite citizens increases. Although in practice the controls are often police are a problem to be dealt with, controlled, or exorcised. inoperative, there are still some constraints on police behavior by the courts, For example, in Boston, a proposal to establish a police-controlled local officials, and state and federal government. For most self-defense community patrol was supported by some black leaders as a vehicle for groups, in the absence of a clear mandate from the communities they wish to improving police-community cooperation. But the Boston National serve, the problem of accountability is potentially a highly problematic Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was highly one. Some groups, of course, may claim a community mandate which ap­ critical and rejected the proposal. An NAACP position paper called for pears stronger than it really is because of community indifference, lack of increased numbers of patrolmen, saying that the overwhelming majority of awareness of the group, or fear of intimidation by it. the black citizens in the area wanted adequate and just police protection, not Legitimacy may simply be denied those seeking to play police roles. Though an amateur substitute. Its statement suggested that if crime rose on Boston’s policing by one’s peers seems much more desirable than an outside praetorian Beacon Hill or other equally wealthy parts of the city, the city’s response guard, it may not always work. Neighborhood policemen may be seen as would be augmented police forces. The statement added: neighbors not police. Thus, in one housing project when an irregularly employed resident with a reputation for inebriation took a job in a tenant’s It is shameful that where Black people in particular are concerned—whether they are a majority or minority in an area—officials and leaders leap for short patrol, he found that his efforts to maintain order were met with amusement 140 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 141

and retorts such as, “you’re old Ernie; you ain’t a cop.” Or if legitimacy is group’s psychiatrist (himself an ex-green beret) to screen out sadistic, granted, the appeal to ties of ethnicity, class, generation, or neighborhood unstable, or otherwise undesirable applicants.14 A JDL patrol coordinator may inhibit fair and universalistic behavior by those on patrol. reports receiving calls from a number of people, including members of outlaw The legitimacy issue is also complicated by raising the question for motorcycle clubs, who wanted to shoot blacks and adds “the line between heterogeneous areas: “In whose eyes?” Groups are likely to receive greater or dedication and screwballs is very close.” The “defenders,” a group studied by lesser support depending on the degree of homogeneity between the racial and Harold Nelson, requires, beyond a thorough background investigation, that ethnic backgrounds (and other social characteristics as well) of the group members be married and, to weed out romantics and the inexperienced, that doing the patrolling, the group it feels it is protecting, and the groups from they have served in the military at least six weeks under active war combat whom it is seen to need protection. Many combinations in terms of support conditions. Some adversarial police patrols require nothing more than an 15 from the public are possible, and each has a potentially different outcome. A oath and memorization of a political party platform. predominantly white patrol group in an area in racial transition is likely to Little is known about the range of motives that may lead a citizen to join (and meet more conflict than a black group in an all-black area. stay in) a community patrol group, just as relatively little is known about why 16 For groups which emerge out of already existing organizations such as a people seek to enter regular police forces beyond the quest for a steady job. civil defense unit, a minister’s association, athletic teams or faculty on the American police departments that have a relatively thorough selection college campus, and community action and service organizations, problems process (such as Los Angeles, which takes less than 5 percent of those who apply) still face many serious police-community relations problems.17 It seems of organization and legitimacy, while present, are likely to be less pronounced. likely that self-defense groups, which often experience manpower shortages There also are problems of an operational nature. Most police interventions and which have much less stringent screening or membership requirements, stem from citizen requests, usually through telephoning. Even if citizens have would stand a far greater chance of recruiting people not emotionally (or, in heard of the group, they may not know how to contact them. The groups are limited to observable behavior in public places. 14. Included in the undesirable category was a social researcher seeking to do participant 3. The Recruitment and Training of Personnel observation, However, the ability of some people to patrol without the participation interview suggests that it may also have a public relations function. In discussing civilian mobilization around the issue of law enforcement, one 15. It has been suggested that one factor (in addition to actions of the government) in the police scholar writes: increased violence of the Black Panthers in 1969 and 1970 was a relaxation in their membership screening. Experience has shown that it is not alone the super defenders of hearth and home 16. An additional motivational factor almost always neglected by social researchers either out who clamor for an opportunity to serve. Truculent, disorderly, intolerant, and of good taste, ideology, or the vast distance between them and those they are studying is the downright vicious elements also flock to police standards at such time [of crisis], careerist implications that can be involved in the emergence of such noninstitutional phenomena. from motives of their own and with objectives foreign to the maintenance of civil As with most human matters, motivation may sometimes be less pure than it appears. In peace.12 describing a case, Tom Wolfe notes: There is, of course, likely to be variation among groups, and differences in There was one genius in the art of confrontation who had mau-mauing down to what you could term a laboratory science. He had it figured out so he didn’t even have to bring his the resources available to screen and train personnel, as well as the will to do boys downtown in person. He would just show up with a crocus sack full of revolvers, ice this. The exact criteria for membership in the patrols are often not formalized picks, fish knives, switchblades, hatchets, blackjacks, gravity knives, straight razors, hand and may depend on the whim of a charismatic leader. In Newark, Anthony grenades, blow guns, bazooks, Molotov cocktails, tank rippers, unbelievable stuff, and he’d dump it all out on somebody’s shiny walnut conference table. He’d say “These are Imperiale (who supported George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election) some of the things 1 took off my boys last night... I don’t know, man ... Thirty minutes claims that he dismisses any member of his group whom he suspects of racism. ago I talked a Panther out of busting up a cop.. .’’and they would lay money on this man’s He notes, “Many people came to us because of my old name as a Negro hater, ghetto youth patrol like it was now or never. . . . but we have special details to look out for these people. They’re a bigger threat Tom Wolfe, Radical Chic and Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers (New York: Simon and Schuster, 13 1970). than the black militants.” 17. Perhaps something can be inferred about the greater abuse potential of those rejected by In 1969 before aspirant members were allowed to patrol with the Jewish regular police by noting that private security guards, who seem to be higher in the abuse of their Defense League in Boston they were required to have an interview with the powers than traditional police, are often rejected applicants for the regular force. This may also be true of some who join citizen patrols. The leader of a highly publicized group in an eastern city had 12. B. Smith, Police Systems in the United States (New York: Harper, 1960), p. 314. reportedly been rejected several times in his bid to join the regular police force. He subsequently 13. Christian Science Monitor (January 16, 1970): 2. set up his own. 142 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 143

18 some cases, morally) suited to policing others. Police folklore suggests that service, help with a child in trouble or protection from harassment, can also this is the case, although adequate empirical data are not available. help define a group’s activities.19 Patrols strive for public approval or official recognition. However, given In other cases an already functioning organization may come to see policing the characteristics of many of those who become involved, this may be as compatible with its ends. Civil defense groups have given rise to various difficult—particularly in minority neighborhoods, where law enforcement anti-crime activities. They offer an organizational structure, are tensions are greatest and where many self-defense groups accept for neighborhood based, and have an ethos and sense of mission entirely membership men with arrest records. Unfortunately, an arrest record is an compatible with crime control (this is of course also true of the local male ecological fact of life in such areas and need not imply very much about a youth, athletic, and fraternal groups which have been involved in patroling). person’s character or potential. It may even be indicative of an ability to relate Some groups have emerged from civic, community welfare and development better than alien police to the young men on the street likely to be engaged in organizations. In one midwestern city a “clean up and beautification crime and civil disorders. Yet it also may influence the acceptability and image campaign” has since given rise to another kind of clean-up campaign of the group in the eyes of the police and in at least some parts of the involving local groups with a crime-awareness program. communities they wish to serve. Yet it is one thing to agree that there are problems and quite another to Even where such problems of membership are not present, a related decide what lines of action are appropriate and possible. The role of the citizen problem reported in several cities involved nonpatrol members impersonating patroller is not as clearly defined as is that of a teaching aide or hospital patrol members and using their authority and coercion to obtain personal or volunteer, and it appears to have basic conflicts structured into it. Although illegal ends. In several cities, supposed abuses of patrol members turned out to the groups have considerable latitude of choice with regard to operations, involve persons pretending to be in the patrol. Loose organization and ill- their use of weapons is subject to obvious restrictions. Almost no groups defined criteria for membership facilitate such impersonation, and the jackets admit to carrying guns, although police said that two groups did. or armbands which some patrols use as identifying symbols are easily In carrying out their activities, self-defense groups face potentially serious obtained. Impersonation is less likely in the case of regular police, given their legal problems. They are on patrol; yet they lack the power of arrest and the uniforms, badges, and clear criteria for membership. right to use force granted regular police. There is no intermediary status in American society between the role of citizen and that of policeman. Unless a 4. Choosing Self-Defense Operations citizen, however concerned, is deputized or admitted to the low-power police The operations of many self-defense groups are conditioned by the nature auxiliaries, he can have no law-enforcement powers beyond those of the of the precipitating event. Civil disorders, such as the ones in Newark, have ordinary citizen. And the citizen’s power in law enforcement is severely given rise to youth patrols attempting to restore calm to their communities as circumscribed, with potentially serious penalties for its usurpation. well as to patrols in white areas, such as Imperiale’s, concerned with keeping In almost all cities, police errors (and sometimes abuses not stemming from supposed black rioters out. Campus sit-ins have given rise to student and errors) are routinely excused as justifiable, given the margin of error thought faculty marshalls. Attacks on women leaving church services have led to to be required in the performance of a dangerous and difficult job. But escort groups. Attacks on civil rights figures have resulted in protective citizens, even those with police approval, do not receive the same de facto guards, especially in the South. The Oakland Black Panthers’ observations of protective blanket. Instead, they are fully liable to tort actions for wrongful police activities grew out of the police killing of a black. In New York, tenant death or injury. Given the nature of self-defense operations, it seems likely patrol groups began frequenting poorly lit areas of their housing projects and, that those alfected by the groups would seek redress if they felt unjustly dealt in many cases, rode the elevators with otherwise unaccompanied women after with. a number of apartment and elevator murders. The Boston Jewish Defense Although the legal situation is at present ambiguous, it is not at all clear that League placed guards in front of synagogues after several were burned. A self-defense groups even have workable powers of citizens’ arrest. In general, series of closing-time robberies led one group to stay in stores as they were citizens are not allowed to use force unless it is to defend themselves personally about to close. Children dying from drug overdoses have given rise to anti­ from felonious violence. Short of that, in theory, citizens may not have the drug groups in various cities. Requests from constituents for a certain kind of power to restrain, hold, or subdue suspects in most criminal behavior. And in

18. Of course, this type of criticism seems less appropriate where an entire community of 19. For example, a woman in an area many miles from where the Boston Jewish Defense people has been excluded from involvement with the official police force, as it is in many southern League regularly patrols reported anti-Semitic harassment by a gang of local youth. After a communities. “discussion” with a Jewish Defense League delegation, the gang’s harassment reportedly stopped. 144 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 145 the case of adversarial groups, even if citizens did have the power to arrest or situation regarding the efforts of student and faculty marshalls prevailed otherwise restrict police, such power is unlikely to be recognized. during some campus disorders. As pressure is brought to bear on them, or the limits and ambiguities of the On the other hand, police may treat a group which sees itself as a more patrols are realized, some groups rather quickly abandon active patrols in neutral peacekeeping force (trying to maintain order while remaining a buffer favor of political action. They may move from threats of vigilante action to between authorities and an angry community) as if they were merely an holding meetings, pressuring the city council, or evaluating the law-and-order extension of regular police. That the groups need at least tacit police sup­ record of judges and candidates. The groups or individuals in them may port may offer police a means of bargaining for ends they seek. Given the become part of the regular police auxiliary. Well-to-do communities may hire apprehension, prevention, and surveillance goals of police, there appear to be licensed private security guards. Groups that remain with active patrols may pressures to move neutral buffer groups into more explicit police activities. seek legitimacy through the concept of citizens’ arrest and the right of self- Thus, in one city in Kansas, the police chief who cooperated in the setting up defense and by stressing their support of regular police. They may be very of a patrol group later tried unsuccessfully to get the head of the group to careful to follow all laws. They may publicly stress that their actions are infiltrate the Black Panthers. In another city a patrol leader was asked to ride limited to observation and communications. They may be instructed to avoid with police and point out “troublemakers.” In a western city, local citizen any confrontation or use of force and simply be a presence. In one city, “beat committees” are encouraged to write legislators about “laws due to patrollers are told not to leave their radio cars unless asked to do so by police. come before the legislature which the [police] department believes would be While an emphasis on the supportive and legal nature of a patrol may be beneficial, also those which hamper our efforts.” Yet, even with police conducive to support from authorities and some members of the community, support, broader political changes may greatly affect a group. Thus, in one it may alienate others who will more clearly see them as agents of regular midwestern city a newly elected law-and-order mayor replaced the police chief police. Herein lies a dilemma. In such cases, to gain community support they and dissolved a citizens' patrol he had helped to sponsor. must differentiate themselves from police and stress their independence; yet in Even where a group is clearly able to play a role independent of authorities, doing this they may alienate themselves from police, whose support, at least some members of the community they wish to relate to will simply see them as tacitly, they are likely to require. In Watts, for example, members of the auxiliary police, no matter what the group does. Dissenting political ideas and Community Action Patrol were accused of being police agents. To allay fears the fact that the group may have some of the same ends and trappings of and suspicions that they would “rat” on blacks by reporting crimes to police, a regular police (paramilitary organization, uniforms, radio cars, walkie- patrol’s commander publicly stated that they would not do this. This then talkies, etc.) for some people are conducive to seeing indigenous patrols as, in further strengthened police opposition. principle, indistinguishable from regular police. The role of citizen patrollers tends to lack clarity and there is not much The question of how indigenous policing groups maintain (or try to consensus about what it should entail. It is often unclear whom a group is maintain) credibility with those they wish to serve is an important one. One serving, or what actions it should be taking. During a period of civil disorder, definition adopted by some black adversarial groups is to try and enforce the for example, are patrollers agents of established authority, third party morality of the dominant society but not to use its institutional means. A intervenors serving as a buffer between (or controls on both) antagonists, or frequent appeal by ghetto patrols to disorderly youths was “Come on, we are they agents of an aggrieved community? Even if patrollers have clearly don’t want the cops in here.” Several patrols were set up by ex-felons, not to defined this issue for themselves, others may not see them in the same way. aide police, but to try and keep their friends out of trouble. As one activist put Police may see those playing such roles as part of the problem and not grant it, “the attitude is you don’t want to be a policeman; you want to help.” A them the legitimacy promised by higher officials. For example, according to Baton Rouge group’s overall purpose is “looking after the people.” This the governor of New Jersey, during the Newark riot black peacekeeping includes victims of crime as well as victimizers. In some places part of looking volunteers (supported by the mayor and the state government) “were chased after the latter may mean getting them to cease criminal activity without around so much by [law enforcement] people who suspected them as turning them over to police and courts. Black groups in some areas are seeking participating in the riot that they had to abandon their efforts.’’20 During a to drive narcotics peddlers, thieves, and prostitutes out of their communities Cincinnati riot, police refused to cooperate with black peacekeepers (given without involving regular police. badges by the mayor) and arrested them on charges of loitering. A similar Legitimacy may also be sought through a spillover effect as the group’s operations come to involve less controversial activities. A number of groups 20. Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders, Report for Action (New Jersey, 1968). had a tendency to expand into traditional welfare activities: ambulance 146 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 147 services, free health clinics, free breakfast and lunch programs, job such as the desire for novelty, excitement, authority, and machismo. Such counseling, tutoring programs, all-purpose complaint centers, Little League needs can be satisfied or frustrated by group operations. The participants baseball teams, community oriented business, etc. This may help their image interviewed rarely reported encounters, and so their tasks may quickly in the eyes of an uncertain community. Social assistance and order become routine. While this might be an argument for the deterrent value of maintenance activities raise fewer problems for a group than do efforts at patrols, it does not help sustain those whose motivation for joining involves enforcing the law. They can also give the organization new life and purpose. the search for action. An observer of the Newark North Ward Citizens Committee reports, “Actually, though the potential for excitement is most 22 5. Incentives for Group Survival obviously there, the patrols tend to be boring.” . As of August 1970, after many months of operation, the Jewish Defense l.eague in Boston had not A large proportion of self-defense groups fail to develop the requisites for prolonged group survival such as with a formal organization having a reported any direct encounters with offenders. After three and a half years the founder of a housing authority patrol had not seen anything “really relatively clear sense of direction and a continuing source of support. Type I suspicious” and saw the work as “mostly tedious duty.” An analysis of a organizations appear to be the most permanent. They are also the most bureaucratic and most likely to be able to pay members. The presence of Minneapolis Indian Patrol notes “On a given night they might help no one. They might not observe any arrests nor encounter any police officers.”23 resources as such is not, however, a guarantee of success; they can result in A much in-fighting and factionalism as members of a group compete to control common theme in a number of accounts was the boring, routine nature of what is available.21 patrols. There is a high attrition rate and in eastern and midwestern areas The existence of other types of groups seems to depend largely on a sudden participation rates drop appreciably in the winter. felt crisis (civil disorder, a particularly horrible crime or instance of police Even those groups which develop an organizational structure and are brutality, a rapidly changing neighborhood) or on a charismatic leader. When successful in keeping order and reducing crime or perceived police abuse are these conditions are no longer present, such groups tend to disperse. The not assured of continued existence. In fact, under some circumstances, modeling influence of the media is important here. For example, within six organizational success may even make survival less likely. A weak, weeks after the first youth patrol appeared during the 1967 civil disorders, at disorganized adversarial group may be seen to pose less of a threat to regular least eight more appeared. As the riots subsided, so did the groups. police than a stronger group. For example, when a group—through the use of For many of the young, lower-status males involved in patrol groups, to be cameras and tape recorders or the threatened use of violence against invested with the symbols of authority (armbands, special jackets, badges, policemen seen as offenders—begins to make the police feel its presence, identification cards, uniforms, etc.), and to be offered a degree of respect and strong pressures may emerge for the group’s abolition. The success of groups responsibility usually denied them had great meaning. In the words of one in dealing with crime or disorders may also be seen to highlight the failure of observer, “the uniform helps a lot; it makes a man feel like a big shot.” In the regular police. Though a degree of external conflict may increase a group’s initial stages, such intangibles were important motivating factors. Yet, for solidarity and will to stuggle, political pressure, particularly from police, has many people involved in volunteer groups over a period of time, certificates disbanded apparently successful programs in a number of cities including and banquets are of limited effectiveness as motivating devices. Many police Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh (California). interviewed could not understand why citizens would be willing to undertake gratuitously such a job with its hazards and ambiguities. SOME IMPLICATIONS An unconscientious approach to the task, which characterizes some policemen, may also characterize patrollers. In the case of one tenant patrol in The emergence of self-defense groups (along with increases in gun sales, a high-crime project area, some volunteers preferred to stay in the lobbies homicide and riot) represent a countertrend to the increasing tendency of the where it was warm rather than patrol stairwells and elevators where there was state to monopolize the means of violence and to extend its control ever danger of attack or encounter. outward. The twentieth century has seen a decline in American traditions of Beyond the need to cope with a severely felt problem or payment for the work, such self-defense groups may attract members for a variety of reasons, 22. P. Goldberger, “Tony Imperiale Stands Vigilant For Law and Order,” New York Times Magazine (September 29, 1968) p. 120. 21, The leader of a successful Boston group sees the voluntary nature of his group as being 23. Fay Cohen, “The Indian Patrol in Minneapolis: Social Control and Social Change in An crucial to its success and reports “money has been the death of other organizations.” Urban Context,” Law and Society Review 1 (Summer, 1973): 784. 148 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 149 nongovernmental interference in private violence.24 The groups represent a who would support supplemental and adversarial patrols in their return to an earlier less differentiated period of American history. communities jumps to more than 42 million. Max Weber has argued that a major characteristic of the modern state is its These perhaps unexpectedly high levels of support for citizen patrols make ability to claim “the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a it interesting to speculate about the potential for vastly more widespread given territory.”25 But, compared to highly centralized European countries, citizen mobilization in America under various kinds of provocation. For this process is much less pronounced in the United States, a country whose Bill example, if crime or riots and social movements were more sustained or of Rights guarantees each citizen “the right to keep and bear arms.” Where it perceived as more of a threat than they have so far been, and law-enforcement exists, the stuggle between citizen patrol groups and the state is part of a authorities were unable to restore order, would literally millions of Americans broader historical process and the unresolved conflict over the role of force in pick up the gun to respond to the perceived threats with private violence? modern American life. Alternately, are there acts of police brutality or oppression sufficiently Beneath the surface of our supposedly monopolistic social control provocative to galvanize adversarial groups in far greater numbers than have institutions and our beliefs about the legality of government violence and the been involved before? These speculations raise important, almost Hobbesian illegality of private violence, there endures considerable support for violence questions about the potential of private man to resort to his own violence if of a private, noninstitutionalized, and nonbureaucratic character. This draws society’s monoply of legitimate violence fails to preserve what is felt to be a on populist and frontier traditions. The United States is perhaps unique desirable level of order. Although our research, of course, is far from among industrialized nations in the strength of this sentiment. It is not providing predictions about the levels of vigilantism and private violence surprising that such citizen patrols are almost unknown in most European under various conditions, a study of existing citizen patrols can help to societies. The patrols can be seen as the iceberg tip of America’s potential for illuminate the fears and values which support or oppose citizen mobilization. the private violence that is likely under greatly increased levels of crime and Self-defense groups raise important questions for public policy as well as disorder. Indeed, we have not begun to think about the implications of the for social theory and future research. The present paper is more an effort to increase in privately owned handguns by Americans. In the last ten years this raise issues and questions, and to establish a framework for additional has increased from ten million to forty million. Popular films such as Death research and thought, than a final presentation of results, firm conclusions, or Wish serve to diffuse and legitimate a vigilantism model. a well-documented, single point of view. We have specified what seem to be In our survey of citizen attitudes toward patrol groups in the Boston area, a two crucial variables, the group’s definition of the problem and the police very high level of support was found.26 Of adults between the ages of twenty- response. An additional differentiating variable might be whether the group one and sixty-five in the Boston area, over half (55 percent of whites; 69 arises in a context where in principle and, at least to a degree, in practice (as in percent of blacks) supported the idea of supplemental citizen patrols. Perhaps the North) law enforcement has a universalistic character, or in areas (as in even more surprising, over half (55 percent of whites and 70 percent of blacks) parts of the South) where a group, such as blacks to a much greater degree, is also supported the idea of groups which try to check up on the police by granted protection neither by, nor from, law-enforcement officials. A related observing their operations. variable might be whether the group primarily seeks protection from crimes If this finding can be generalized to adults between the ages of twenty-one which violate widely held legal and moral standards or (as in the case of the Ku and sixty-five in all American metropolitan areas the size of Boston or larger, Klux Klan) seeks to enforce a particular set of social practices on a it means (conservatively, using the white percentage based upon the 1970 community. It may be that little is to be gained in trying to make broad census) that there are more than 12 million Americans who could support generalizations about such highly varied groups which may share little more supplemental and/or adversarial citizen patrols in their communities. If our than a desire to act on law enforcement issues. findings can be further generalized to adults between the ages of twenty-one Let us then restrict our focus to the more prevalent and enduring and sixty-five in all urban areas, regardless of size, the number of Americans supplemental groups which are concerned with violations of widely held legal and moral standards in a milieu where there is at least an expressed value of 24. For example, see A. Waskow, From Race Riot to Sit-In (Garden City; Doubleday, 1966). universalistic police protection (e.g., parts of the South are excluded). Most of 25. H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Ox­ ford University Press, 1961), p. 78. the existing evaluations of such self-defense groups have been based on 26. A full report of the survey can be found in our paper, “Picking Up the Gun: Some hunches, impressionistic evidence, deductions from abstract political theory, Organizational and Survey Data on Community Police Patrols,” in the proceedings of parallels to earlier periods of American history, and often a goodly dose of The Symposium on Studies of Public Experience, Knowledge and Opinion of Crime and Justice, Bureau of Social Science Research (Washington, D.C., 1972). ideological self-justification. But, given the limitations on the nature of the 150 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 151

available data, what can we conclude about self-defense groups? Perhaps the the ability to survive organizationally, a majority of groups appear to fail. But safest conclusion is how little is known about them. while they are operative their consequences can be assessed. Moreover, as will But next, the most striking feature of the groups we considered involves the be indicated, the disappearance of a group may not mean failure. One factor large number of organizational and operational difficulties they face—and the inhibiting the evaluation of effectiveness may be competition with regular related phenomenon of the relatively short lifespan which many groups police. Thus, the police in one large eastern city have refused to release crime experience. Many problems are inherent in authority relations, and groups data that would permit some assessment of the effect of a large housing trying to establish new policing institutions face complex problems not faced authority tenant patrol. Many groups have a spontaneous and by regular police, in addition to all the problems facing the police. nonbureaucratized quality not much given to systematic evaluation efforts.28 Self-defense groups often lack a clear mandate from the groups they wish to If there is little evidence that marked regular police patrol cars prevent serve and their legal position regarding the use of force and citizen arrests is crime, there is even less indication of the success of irregular, often unclearly ambiguous. They may have trouble defining their task. The tendency of the marked citizen police patrol cars, though they do occasionally relay groups to lack the resources for recruiting, screening, and training information to police. Escort services may mean crimes are prevented, though appropriate manpower, and for sustaining motivation beyond that which measuring events that don’t happen can be difficult. Several informants stems from a deeply felt crisis (and the degree of autonomy some groups have) reported that they thought the main consequence of their patrols was may contribute to ineffectiveness and abuses. And even if internal problems symbolic and participatory, rather than effective in actual reductions in the are solved, the groups may face harassment from police. crime level. However, visible guards patrolling on foot in a limited area, such Yet the survival and growth of some groups show that these difficulties are as an old people’s home or a playground, have reduced vandalism and not always insurmountable. It becomes important to ask why. Three physical assaults. Some civil disorders, enlarged by regular police, have important factors would seem to be (1) a crisis that continues to be deeply felt, cooled when police were withdrawn and community patrols attempted to (2) the presence of a charismatic leader, or at least one capable of performing maintain order, though in other cases such patrols have seemed to have no the delicate liaison role between his patrol group, its presumed constituency, effect. and authorities, (3) the emergence of a formally organized group with a It is interesting to speculate on the several possible relationships between continuing source of financial support. the groups and disorders. At their inception, self-defense groups often tend to The longest lived groups tend to be those in Cells I and II of the typology be a precipitate following from the perception of violence, injustice, and developed earlier (supplemental). They are subject to varying degrees of regulation by local government but in return are able to draw on their evidence of the effectiveness of regular police patrols is also lacking. In the case of southern black financial support and legitimacy. Patrols made up of those higher in social adversarial groups there is impressionistic evidence that some of the more grievous white offenses have been curtailed. Charles Sims, a leader of the Louisiana Deacons, observes about groups such position seem more likely to endure. Also relevant to survival and as his: commitment is whether the group is united by more than a common enemy. Well, when the white power structure found out that they had mens, Negro mens that had Does it have an ideology which helps bind members together and tells them made up their minds to stand up for their people and to give no ground, would not tolerate what they are for as well as what they are against? Are patrols only one part of with no more police brutality, it had a tendency to keep the nightriders out of the a broader program, as with some black groups and the Jewish Defense neighborhood. League? In characterizing the essentially defensive character of his group, he notes, “The nonviolent act is a good act—providing the policemen do their job. But in the southern states ... the police have never done their job when the white and the Negro are involved—unless the Negro’s getting the EFFECTIVENESS best of the white man.” National Guardian (August 20, 1965). See also the case study by H. A. Nelson, “The defenders.” For the North, the case seems less clear. Groups such as the Black Panthers have certainly The effectiveness of self-defense group operations has not been evaluated helped publicize instances of police abuse, and may have served as a threat inhibiting police abuse. with any kind of systematic before-and-after data, such as reports of crime, However, their activities may also mean a reduction of police protection as police become more civil disorders, complaints against police, citizen feelings of safety, attitudes hesitant to take action for fear of criticism and in order to avoid troublesome situations. 27 28. Some of the most interesting patrol action is also likely to be very well hidden given its “by toward the groups and the police, and police and group abuses. In terms of any means necessary” character. For example, recent rumors are that former SNCC workers and street gang members in a vigilante action are moving to rid black communities of drug pushers. 27. For the evaluation of a one-week New York City experiment, G. Nash, The Community Note ten unsolved murders and numerous shootings of suspected narcotics distributors in New Patrol Corps (New York: Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, 1968). It is York City. New York Times (January 23, 1972): 2; also Newsweek (September 27, 1971): perhaps unfair, of course, to ask for evidence of the effectiveness of patrols in reducing crime when 75-76. 152 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 153 lawlessness. If the groups do derive from urban disorders and violent crimes, group but as a problem: crime and disorder. As one observer noted, “Their then presumably self-defense groups would deflate as conditions of order and orientation is antihoodlum not anti-ethnic.” As a result many white northern stability are (often as a result of their own actions) reestablished. While some groups have some black members as well, though the reverse pattern seems groups such as the Tampa and Dayton White Hats or the Youth Alliance in less prevalent. Several of the more successful patrols (at least judged in Boston appear to have contributed to a reduction of civil disorder, some organization and endurance terms) are well integrated. But the lack of groups of Type IV may have had a reverse effect on general racial conflict and offensive group violence is also partly a result of the greater inclusion of white polarization, if not necessarily on civil disorders. At least some self-defense groups into the dominant society and their greater stake in it and of increased organizations may themselves become independently strong variables in the residential segregation, particularly in the North. In this sense the greater disorders which were their occasion. Particularly in urban areas, the groups isolation of whites and blacks and the emergence of clearly delineated ethnic may give organization and sometimes arms to long-standing hostilities areas may ironically serve to reduce conflict, if at a cost to other desired values. between police and citizens. At the same time, those organizations which It would be a mistake to look only at the direct effects of civilian policing operate street patrols may bring into direct contact, often without police groups. In a number of cities, the groups have performed critical catalytic mediation, populations whose mutual fears and prejudices are currently functions—suggesting, in some cases, that the groups are used by tempered by distance. On the other hand (as the decline in labor violence communities to bargain for what they want in the way of law-enforcement associated with the growth of labor unions suggests), organization, through changes. In addition to their face value meaning as alternative institutions, the binding potentially violent members and creating collectivities which can self-defense groups act as a form of demand on the law-enforcement system. negotiate, may actually reduce violence.29 For example, when citizens in Brockton, Massachusetts organized to apply Self-defense groups may also have an importance beyond themselves. for gun permits to protect their homes from a wave of housebreaks, city Citizen mobilization around the issues of lawlessness and crime or police officials met to discuss the lack of adequate police protection. In response to abuse and neglect may be symbolic of broader tensions during periods of the self-defense initiative of the citizens, the chief of police promised to ask the rapid transition. For example, the issue of order has face value but can also be mayor for additional men and for overtime pay to extend the number of police a fairly respectable euphemism for preventing a redistribution of power man-hours in the city. Some of the police interviewed in our study welcomed between competing groups in society. Armed patrols organized by minority the groups as a citizen’s lobby seen as better able than the police to exert groups have also been means for facilitating power changes and questioning pressure on the political system. Beyond increasing police resources, groups in traditional standards. some places have made it easier for police to crack down. The police may One of the more striking things about the patrols is that, relative to what argue that unless they are allowed to act quickly, vigilantes will. The possible might be expected, there has been so little organized interethnic and illegality of both actions, those of police and vigilantes, may seem less interracial violent conflict. Although far more people probably have access to important than the need to prevent vigilante behavior. weapons today than in the 1930s, there seem to have been relatively fewer The bargaining element is also present in the case of adversarial groups. In clashes between (as against clashes within groups or between them and the summarizing the position of the Defenders, Harold Nelson observes, “if police state) ethnic and racial groups. Such groups today, with several prominent failed to perform their duties, either they would have to be forced to do so, or 30 exceptions, tend much more to be literally self-defense groups prepared and someone else would have to perform them.” Even where a group lacks power waiting for attack and violations from some other group, rather than making to actually do either of these, it may be important in symbolically offensive attacks. A factor here may be the achieved rather than ascribed communicating dissatisfaction with the status quo. The threat of violence source of the problem. The issue is defined (at least publicly) not as an ethnic from an adversarial group may also increase the acceptability of more moderate protest groups. 29. In Newark, Imperiale’s group maintained contact with black groups, such as that led by Le The bargaining perspective, of course, enlarges the criteria for evaluating Roi Jones, and even had a direct telephone link. In considering one event Imperiale observes: the success of citizen policing efforts. Groups which successfully change police There was an incident one night, when we were supposed to have done something. The operations as they wish may be thought of as successful, whether or not their hot line rings. It’s Kamil Wadeu Security [Le Roi Jones’ Chief of Staff]. Immediately patrolling or other activities are long-lived. through our radios we dispatch one of our cars, check it out and find it’s a fallacy. In the meantime Kamil’s people are in the area, checking out the same thing. We dispel the Similarly, whatever their objective consequences, some of the groups may rumor together, before all our people take to the street and start something. Quoted in Goldberger, New York Times Magazine, p. 118. 30. Nelson, Social Problems, p. 130. 154 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 155

increase citizen feelings of security and reduce feelings of isolation. The groups, an ambivalence rooted in contradictory aspects of the American value patrols may be appreciated for listening and at least trying to act on the system and the unmet needs of a sizeable proportion of the American public. complaints and fears of those who feel ignored and forgotten by city First, it is clear that an acceptable level of public security does not exist in governments. They may also contribute to a sense of self-worth and many low income communities, and serious conflicts may exist between police responsibility on the part of participants. Members of the larger, often and citizens in such areas. Often police are either unwilling or lacking the problem-ridden communities the patrols wish to serve may gain pride and a resources to provide adequate protection. Rigid requirements may preclude sense of satisfaction in seeing the community organize to help itself. The many potentially effective local men from joining the force (such as previous Maccabees in the Crown Heights area of New York appear to have served as a arrest records; past history of radical activities; minimum height, weight and cohesive force and slowed down the rapid demographic transition of their age requirements; or the need to be a policeman full-time). Police may also be neighborhood. separated from many of those they ostensibly serve (or at least deal with) by Finally, some citizen patrol groups may form a symbiotic relationship with ideological, social, economic, racial, ethnic, religious, geographical, police. We came across occasional hints that group members sometimes did attitudinal, and age factors. Along with this may go a resulting lack of things for police which the latter were prevented from doing, in return for knowledge about, concern with, or sympathy for a community and patterns of police cooperation or noninterference in the patrol’s operations. In one hostility and mistrust on all sides. The isolation of police from their instance, members of a patrol group kidnapped, through their own means constituents is related to the exceptional degree of autonomy and problems of obtained a confession, and then turned over to police a murder suspect who accountability which characterize some departments. The problems of overly had been released earlier for insufficient evidence. The suspect was rigid, nonresponsive, highly centralized bureaucracies are well known. As subsequently charged with the crime. The cooperation which has existed attempts to break through and go beyond the exclusive and professionalized between the Ku Klux Klan and some southern police is well known. While the provinces of established authority, self-defense groups are analogous to dimensions and extensiveness of such symbiotic relations are not known, to community mobilization around issues of schools, urban renewal, the extent that supplemental groups consider police as handicapped from transportation, recreation, and welfare. They may be seen as a special form of within by overzealous concern for the rights of suspects, extralegal criminal the increasing demand for citizen participation in the planning, control, and investigations and techniques are not improbable. delivery of the services which affect them. In light of these factors, the groups Citizen involvement in law enforcement, particularly when it involves are not unappealing. autonomous groups, is unlike other forms of citizen participation. The stakes Who, after all, can be opposed to self-defense? In the best of American are higher; the risk of miscarriage may be greater, and the consequences of violent and populist traditions, the groups can be seen to represent action and abuse or error appear more serious. New institutions such as the Catholic involvement, self-help, embattled neighbors banding together in a righteous schools of an earlier era and current community schools, or ethnic and racially crusade against the dark forces of crime and disorder. centered hospitals and welfare organizations, often face, in addition to some Yet there is clearly another side: the anti-democratic potential of privately of the organizational problems of older institutions, major difficulties in ob­ organized citizen violence.31 Mass enthusiasm for direct action in the face of taining resources, but they have generally not aroused as much opposition, institutional restraints (the law, courts, elected officials, formal police resentment, and fear as have some of the patrols. What is at stake here is bureaucracy, and procedure, etc.) for many people raises the spectre of the Ku control over the means of violence and coercion that are so central to the Klux Klan and European fascist groups. The picture of independent armed organization of the state itself. entrepreneurs patrolling “their” heterogeneous communities is not one that Like other efforts for increased citizen participation, the self-defense groups can be unequivocally welcomed. raise issues with inbuilt trade-offs. The enthusiasm of the group members is The rhetoric of vigilantism and threats to “take care of’ a given group must usually offset by their lack of professional training; the inclusion of some be considered apart from a group’s actual activities. A group may make sectors of an urban community can antagonize other sectors; the use of local threats of an extremist nature without intending to carry them out. Such residents to protect their own communities may mean a sacrifice of the ideal of rhetoric can be an important factor in political struggles. Some groups may the disinterested and even-handed peace officer, but a gain in the ability to relate to the community in question. 31. This is certainly not to deny the same potential and reality in government-organized On a personal note, let us consider our own ambivalence toward such violence. 156 Gary T. Marx and Dane Archer Community Police Patrols 157 have a high degree of control over their members. Yet they may be unable to argued that the patrols are inferior to more responsible and sensitive regular limit the violent actions of nonmember sympathizers, who, unaware of the police who are carefully chosen, trained, and supervised in restructured 32 functions of rhetoric, may interpret such rhetorical threats as heroic calls to departments. action. The consequences of such groups must be considered in terms of the Yet matters are unfortunately not so simple. American society has not dealt general climate of opinion they help create. meaningfully enough with its lack of equality of opportunity, not to mention Even where the threat of actual vigilante type violence is minimal, there is equality of outcome, and it shows little sign of doing so at present. Continuing an ambiguity here reflecting a conflict in values not found to the same extent high and increased levels of certain types of crime and disorder related to this with citizen involvement in other public service bureaucracies. Take for are to be expected, as are increased citizen demands for security. To judge example, the leaflets passed out by a sheriff’s office in Oregon which ask from the last ten years and the conditions of the cities, more responsible and citizens “do you know something the sheriff’s office in Multnomah County sensitive regular police are not likely to be forthcoming in adequate supply. In should know?” On the one hand this can be seen as a legitimate appeal for such a context we may be left with the patrols as the better of limited cooperation with authorities for the enforcement of community standards alternatives. involving the protection of persons and property. Yet on the other hand such citizen involvement can raise the specter of neighbors spying on each other under the benevolent (or not so benevolent) guidance of Big Brother. For many people the negative reaction against police in unmarked cars giving traffic tickets, or plainclothes police making arrests during demonstations, would also apply to the policing actions of private citizens. There is a second problem as well. The patrols can be seen as a mechanism for perpetuating the second class services that low income people often receive in American cities. As the survey data indicate, support and mobilization for the patrols is found disproportionately among lower status persons. In the event of a felt crisis over crime, middle class people apparently more often effectively press the government for the increased services of outside professional police specialists, or they hire private licensed guards. Lower status people are more likely to try and do the job themselves, or they may have such a solution thrust upon them by city government. In either case, inequality in city services may result. Patrols organized around a particular ethnic group or class, aside from the chance of increasing interethnic and class conflict, may be based on the erroneous assumption that serious crime is the problem and responsibility of a specific ethnic group or class rather than a public problem and responsibility. The language of universalism, institutional restraints, and municipal responsibility is appealing from a standpoint of political theory and high school civics courses, its anti-patrol implications are obvious. However, it avoids the issue of what a group that feels threatened is to do if the government is unable or unwilling to provide the required services. In the words of one patrol leader, “If the government can’t protect us then we have to protect ourselves.” Aside from their use in delimited and focused contexts of internal policing involving order maintenance and assistance (where clearer boundaries and a 32. Many of the problems and failings of such groups, of course, also characterize some police. However, the issue is not that police are always appreciably better, but that increasing the total relatively homogeneous constituency are more likely to exist), as in rock amount of abuse does not seem desirable. In addition, although they are often inadequate, there concerts, protest demonstrations, schools and housing projects, it can be are mechanisms for regulating police behavior.